


Bright Stars on Another Gilded Tree

by potentiality_26



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Christmas, First Kiss, M/M, Minor Bruce/Valkyrie, Multi, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Post-Thor: Ragnarok (2017), Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 18:20:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14753915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26
Summary: Thor wondered if Loki was only feigning ignorance.  On the one hand, he had spent little time on Midgard to appreciate their ways.  On the other, Loki liked to collect stories and knowledge.  It would be unlike him to neglect such a thing.  But if he did know already, he still wanted Thor to tell him or he would not have asked, and Thor could see no harm in it.  “Christmas is a winter holiday celebrated in some places on Midgard.  They do love a holiday there.”  He added this last with a fond laugh.“And they didn’t on Asgard?” Loki’s laughter was somewhat less fond.  “I remember feasts that lasted for days.”The weeks and months after Ragnarok are all about revelations and recovery- and just possibly seasonal good cheer.





	Bright Stars on Another Gilded Tree

**Author's Note:**

> First I was going to finish this before Christmas, and then I was going to finish it before Infinity War came out, and neither of those things really happened. But maybe some people will be in the mood for Christmassy not-IW-compliant fic right now. Title from "Old December" by Thea Gilmore.

It was Banner who started it.

His concerns about never being himself again if he turned back into the Hulk appeared to have been unjustified.  The Hulk slept, and he woke as Banner.  Any celebration on the subject was short-lived, for he slipped back into the Hulk again over breakfast.  Things continued in that vein: instead of struggling to remain himself when enraged and then returning again later, Banner seemed to slip in and out.  To keep to the metaphor he had used on Sakaar, it was as if some other force unpredictably transported one or the other into the driver’s seat, and there was no way to know which it would be at a given time. 

Thor hoped that when they returned to Midgard, this newfound malleability would help Stark and the others find a better solution for Banner and the Hulk.  Because if their time on Sakaar had proven anything, it was that the Hulk was not merely a beast to be locked away.  He was a being in his own right, and _with_ his own rights. 

For the present, with many Asgardians and other creatures who did not find him terribly frightening to befriend, the Hulk seemed content.  And Banner...

Well.  Banner was a different story altogether.  

Everyone on the ship- from Korg and the rest of the fighters they met Sakaar, to the Asgardians young and old, to the Valkyrie who had not considered herself truly of Asgard for a long time- was having a difficult time adjusting.  But Banner, coming as he did from a people who did not yet travel among the stars and having forgotten most of his experiences on Sakaar as the Hulk- was having the most difficult time of all.  Thor knew this; he knew, too, that Banner was trying to keep busy. 

There was no shortage of things for him to keep busy with.  The ship Korg had taken was large, of course, and the grandmaster had kept it in good repair, but it was simply not constructed to house so many for so long- and as such it quickly fell out of repair. 

The first incident was minor enough- a heating unit that malfunctioned in one of the quarters.  “Can you fix it?” Thor asked him.  “With one of your PHDs?”

“They weren’t for _this_ ,” Banner was quick to protest.  “With Tony’s help I could maybe get it running again, but as it is... I just don't know.”  Banner eyed the unit with displeasure.  “You know this is going to keep happening, don’t you?”

It kept happening.  A duct broke and a wall panel came lose and another heating unit malfunctioned.

“Not a lot of mechanics on Asgard, were there?” Banner asked grimly.

“Perhaps Loki could help you,” Thor said.  “He can master most anything he sets his mind to.”

Banner scowled.

Thor knew perfectly well that Banner didn’t like Loki.  And Loki... he was constantly torn between his natural inclination to antagonize, and his genuine fear of the thing Banner became when he was antagonized.  Thor wasn’t sure which part of Loki would win, or what would happen once it did.  Perhaps he and Banner might slowly become friends.  Perhaps he and the Hulk would kill each other. 

In the end, it was decided that Loki ought to stay away from Banner- especially when he was trying to fix something. 

And try to fix things Banner did- with much trial and error.  Thor knew he was mainly in search of something to occupy his mind each day as he wrestled with how far he was from home and how long he had been a prisoner in his own mind.  There was always plenty to do- but it didn’t seem to be enough for him.  And when Banner himself came to that conclusion, strange things started to happen. 

Thor found wreaths strategically placed throughout the ship.  They were constructed of old bits of junk, but they were still pleasing to the eye.  Thor liked them well enough, but he was confused as to their significance- particularly when he caught Banner in the act of hanging one. 

Banner didn’t turn around, though he clearly sensed Thor’s presence.  “I realized I didn’t even know what time of year it was," he said.  "You told me how long I'd been gone, but since the year as I understand it is solar and- you know- the sun’s not there, so... it’s all sort of meaningless, isn't it?  And I just... wanted to know.  So I asked Heimdall and he told me it was December on Earth.  So.  I’ve been using all the old things I’ve had to replace to make Christmas decorations.  I know that they’re not going to mean a whole lot to anybody here, I just wanted to... try.”

“I understand,” Thor said.

Banner looked faintly doubtful.  “You know what it is, right?  Christmas?”

It was difficult to be in New York around that time of year and not at least become aware of it.  Thor had received explanations, in varying degrees of earnestness, from Jane and her friends, and from the Avengers.  He understood the principle involved.  Brightly colored decorations.  Gifts.  A god-like man with a sleigh.  It was not a tradition on Asgard, of course, but with their home gone a new tradition might be exactly what they needed.  “If you need help, I can enlist some."

Banner waved him off.  “I’m just making them to unwind,” he said.  “Don’t issue a royal decree or anything.”

“Very well.  But some of the children might enjoy helping you.”

That gave Banner something to think about.  He was silent for a while, then, “It’s a big ship,” he said quietly. 

“Yes,” Thor agreed, without entirely knowing what he was agreeing to. 

“Not big enough to outrun something, though.”

“What sort of something?” Thor asked. 

“Something you... don’t want to face,” Banner replied.  "Yourself, maybe."  He didn’t explain further, and Thor decided not to press him.   He thought he understood, anyway. 

The ship was indeed big, but the number of passengers had rendered it cramped.  Banner was entitled to privacy in his own thoughts when he was master of them.  Thor would leave him be.

*   *   *

Among other things, the crampedness of the vessel had necessitated cohabitation.  Families grouped together in quarters, and most others paired off neatly enough.  Now unofficially crowed king, Thor had not only been pressed into taking the finest room for himself, he had also been given to understand that he might live there alone without any complaints.  But that had seemed an unnecessary indulgence- and anyway he didn’t really want to be alone.  So he shared the room, not that he would know it half the time. 

It was a suite, and reasonably luxurious.  The sitting room included the well-appointed sideboard Thor had begun to make use of early on their trip.  “It won’t last,” he told the empty chaise that his roommate typically sat on when he was there.  The ship was fast, but it was not so fast that they wouldn’t have to stop and resupply, possibly several times before they reached Earth.

That was going to be interesting.  Once, interesting would have been enough for him to relish it, but now... now he understood why Loki had thought he would be such a poor king back in the old days.  He had not understood, then, how much having people who depended on him would change things.  It remained to be seen whether _Loki_ had understood.  

Thor eyed the chaise as he slouched down himself.  Where was Loki?  It would no longer surprise him if Loki was up to something sinister, but he hoped not.

He always hoped. 

Even when Loki was on his best behavior, none of Thor’s friends among the Asgard had completely trusted him.  But Thor had, to a fault.  He thought of those now as halcyon days- a calm before the storm, an innocence that once lost could simply never be regained.  But Thor did miss it.  Loki, with his tricks and his spells, was never meant to be the warrior Thor most wanted at his side, nor the advisor closest to his heart- but he always had been.  And, even now, he always would be.

“Bored already?” came Loki’s voice.  He melted out of the scenery as if summoned by Thor’s thoughts.

Thor debated throwing something to see if he was really there, but he decided it didn’t matter as long as Loki wasn't up to some betrayal or sabotage.  “Where have you been?” he asked.

“I had some business to take care of.”

Thor gave him a look.

“Heimdall,” Loki said.  “I had amends to make with him, among other things.”

“He saw you for what you were when you played Odin.”

Loki nodded.

“We’ve been on this ship for an awfully long time- and you've only just got around to apologizing?”

Loki only shrugged one shoulder, clearly waiting to see if Thor would press him for anything more.   

Thor didn’t.  He had never been sure if Loki purposefully met bad expectations- of those, for instance, who had always thought him a poor excuse for an Asgardian, and who were unsurprised, even pleased, to learn that he was otherwise- or if he chafed under good ones, or if it could possibly be both.  Thor didn’t know.  He knew only that he had thought well of Loki even when no one else did, and it hadn’t been enough.  But, as ever, he would let Loki keep his secrets until he had reason to regret it.

It was Loki who eventually broke the silence: “Do you know what exactly Banner is doing with those... rings of junk?”

“They’re Christmas decorations,” Thor told him, pretending that he understood what Banner was doing and why a little better than he actually did for Loki’s benefit.

“Christmas?” Loki repeated, lifting a brow.  

Thor wondered if Loki was only feigning ignorance.  On the one hand, he had spent little time on Midgard to appreciate their ways.  On the other, Loki liked to collect stories and knowledge.  It would be unlike him to neglect such a thing.  But if he did know already, he still wanted Thor to tell him or he would not have asked, and Thor could see no harm in it.  “Christmas is a winter holiday celebrated in some places on Midgard.  They do love a holiday there.”  He added this last with a fond laugh.

“And they didn’t on Asgard?” Loki’s laughter was somewhat less fond.  “I remember feasts that lasted for days.”  His face just then brought to mind his look when in the midst of one of his more malicious jokes- but if he was prodding any particular wound Thor was not aware of it.  He remembered those feasts, but rarely the tail ends of them.  Perhaps it was only the loss of Asgard and far too many of its people that Loki thought would make it painful, and Thor was sure that Loki was pained too in his way.  He might pretend not to care, but surely he _did_. 

“They eat," Thor continued.  "Particularly sweets.  They give gifts and sing songs.  They see friends and family.”  Thor did feel a pang, then, that on a ship so full of his people he had too little left of either. 

He glanced over at Loki, and he did not look particularly satisfied to have touched a nerve.  His face was soft.  “Perhaps it’s not such a bad idea,” he said.  “To learn Midgardian ways a little better.”  Loki had expressed his doubts about returning to Midgard several times, but for the moment he seemed content to follow Thor’s lead.

“I think so,” Thor said at last.  The peace was still fragile between them.  He hoped it did not break.  He knew he had to be ready to lose Loki again- but oh, he did not want to.

*   *   *

Too soon it came time to resupply.  Thor would not have minded, except that he wasn’t quite ready to let the wider universe know what had become of Asgard, or to call himself king of a displaced people and accept all that came with the title.  To think he had once wanted so much to be king.  That seemed very long ago, now. 

“It should be simple enough,” Loki said when he and Thor discussed their needs.  “You and perhaps one or two others will fly to the next suitable planet, barter with the locals if there are any, and return.”

“We have nothing to barter with.”

“Asgard’s favor?” Loki suggested.

He had a light in his eyes that Thor did not like.  “We are not going to pretend that nothing has changed.”  Word of Asgard’s fall would spread, and even if there was some way to prevent it, Thor had no intention of pretending he had armies and a Bifrost as his disposal when it was a lie.  That would be so much worse than admitting the truth could ever be. 

From the way Loki’s mouth twisted, he had suspected Thor's answer long before he asked the question.  “Perhaps we could put everyone to work on crafts of some kind.  We could even sell Banner’s wreaths, if it comes to that.”

“That's not a bad idea,” Thor admitted.  Perhaps not the wreaths, necessarily- he accepted that those had meaning for Banner beyond the obvious- but the notion that they could make other things in the way Banner had been making those was a clever one.

It felt like old times again.  This was what Thor had wanted for as long as he could remember.  Loki at his side, advising him.  Thor was tempted to ask Loki to come with him, in search of further nostalgia, but he decided against it just as Loki said, “You should take the Valkyrie with you.”

Thor lifted an eyebrow.  She was a fine choice- a fierce warrior in a fight if fighting was needed, and good company too- but he wondered if Loki had an ulterior motive. 

“She’s been cooped up for too long,” Loki said.  “Pressure’s building and I don’t want to see it blow.”

“Fair enough,” Thor agreed.

So he took the Valkyrie with him.  He liked her very much now that they were solidly on the same side, but he was only half sorry they had seen so little of each other on the ship thus far.  She was busy entertaining the Hulk, when he was around, and Thor was busy ruling, and that seemed to be a good thing.  The Valkyrie was best in small doses.  

Sure enough, she clapped him on the shoulder once they were aboard their chosen scout ship and said, “What’s it like living with the snake?  He stepped out of line yet?”

Thor couldn’t deny that he did sometimes feel like he was just waiting for Loki to step out of line.  But just because she was right didn’t mean he enjoyed hearing it from her lips.  There was a time when he would have challenged anyone who spoke of his brother like that, and though those times were long past he still had to grit his teeth around something _more_. 

“Don’t want to talk about him, eh?”  When the Valkyrie lifted her hands innocently, Thor realized his fingers were sparking.  She didn’t look any more intimidated than she did when Banner began to tint green, but still.  He had thought he had better control over his powers- over himself- than to have the lightning crop up in such a dangerous setting.

Perhaps the days when he would challenge anyone who spoke of Loki that way weren’t so far in the past after all.

“Let’s talk about me instead,” the Valkyrie said, though she did not speak of herself right away.  No, she asked, “Does Banner have anyone back on Midgard then?  Girlfriend?  Boyfriend?” 

Thor was a little surprised that she asked, though not that she was so expansive in her question- as, say, Banner himself might have been.  Midgardians weren’t so open about these things as they had been on Asgard, though Thor had been given to understand that things were improving.  Among the Valkyrie in particular Thor knew that most of those who had fought side-by-side in their ranks were lovers as well.  It was one of the things that had made Thor most wish he could be such a warrior.  When he was young, to fight and die beside the one he loved seemed like the proudest ambition anyone could have.  But when he was older, and he knew who that would be if he had his choice, everything changed. 

And then everything truly changed, and he met Jane, and he adored her, and even if that had never happened what he wanted deep in his heart still wouldn’t have been worth thinking about.  It never was. 

To shake off these thoughts, Thor kept his attention on the Valkyrie’s question.  “Have you not had plenty of time to learn such things of him?”

She shrugged.  “I suppose.  But he was always all... _green_ before.”

Suddenly Thor realized why in asking if Banner had someone at home she was talking about herself.  He couldn’t help how his face contorted.  “And _huge,_ ” he reminded her. 

The Valkyrie looked more contemplative than anything.  

“Ugh,” Thor said.  “Anyway, he does have a girlfriend, I think.  But it was complicated.”

"Isn't it always?"  She continued to look thoughtful. 

Thor decided to keep well away from whatever was going through her mind.  He elected to focus instead on where their ship was headed.  The planet was small, green and blue with vegetation and good water, and though Thor’s scans suggested there had once been intelligent life there, he could find no particular sign of it now. 

Their ground reconnaissance certainly supported that analysis of the situation.  Vehicles and entire buildings on the surface had been reclaimed by jungle.  Thor stood by the edge of a patch of overgrown farmland that someone had once tended and thought about what might have happened to these people.

These thoughts were interrupted by a loud metallic clank.   

“There’s some good stuff out here,” the Valkyrie called.

“Food?”

Judging from the next clank, Thor thought not.  He climbed a hill and found the Valkyrie standing in a pile of garbage, most of it mossy and rusted.  Perhaps after so long on Sakaar she simply gravitated to trash.  

“Look,” he said.  “Where there’s junk there might be junkers.  We should hurry up and see what's edible around here.”

“Come on,” she said, waving what looked like a scanner as if tempting him.  “You know we could use more spare parts.  If nothing else it would be good for those Christ-mass rings Banner is making.”

Thor had to admit she had a point there.  He could only hope that she wasn’t planning it as some kind of bizarre courting gift- and if she was, he didn't want to know any more about it.  “Just... be quick, all right?”

She flung the scanner aside and saluted.

Thor rolled his eyes. 

*   *   *

In the end, Thor judged the planet safe enough to bring the rest of his people closer, letting them come down in shifts to stretch their legs and see the sky.  The possible food sources Thor had picked out were all judged as perfectly acceptable by the experts on the flora and fauna aboard the ship.  Only a patch of mushrooms, lazily selected by the Valkyrie when Thor told her to at least try to find something edible, was found to be poison. 

However, Banner was so pleased with her mechanical selections that, if she was at all abashed by the thought that her mushrooms could have been lethal, it didn’t last long.

“You seem troubled,” Loki said, settling at Thor’s side when they landed the ship a final time and prepared to get underway again.  “Why?”

Thor wanted to lie.  He could tell Loki of the Valkyrie’s question, joke that the thought of her with Banner- and of her having even briefly considered the Hulk- had made him squeamish and have Loki amuse him in turn.  Instead he told the truth: “I wonder about the people who lived on this planet.”

“You must have some idea of what happened to them,” Loki said.  “Or it would not gnaw at you so.”

“I have been thinking about what Hela said.  How our people were conquerors.  Might there not have been more than nine realms, in truth?  Places which... did not survive their conquest?”

“This world was abandoned too recently to have been her work,” Loki said- and Thor couldn’t help but notice that Loki did not try to remind him that ‘our’ people were not really his.  All such protests seemed to have died with Asgard itself.  “And perhaps they left simply to travel among the stars.”

“Perhaps,” Thor agreed.  It was a fine thing to imagine.  “But there must be such places, must there not?”

Loki made a noise of agreement.  “You believe it now, then?  That you were lied to?  That you too were denied the truth of your heritage?”

Thor shrugged.  “Even I can only be so blind.” He was blinder than he had been, of course.  He laughed to himself.  He couldn’t help noticing that if he had a choice, Loki always settled at his blind side- though whether it was done to reassure or unsettle Thor perhaps even Loki did not know.  “Why?  Are you more content?  Now that I too have been disillusioned?”

“I don’t know what I am,” Loki said. 

And that... that was surely the truth.  A gift indeed for Banner’s season of giving.

The notion of Christmas, though poorly understood in most quarters, spread quickly through the ship over the days that followed.  First it was the Valkyrie, then Korg and the others from Sakaar, who helped Banner with his rather haphazard decorations.  And then there were the various Asgardian children, who had heard some mangled story of Christmas stockings and begun to hang up all manner of footwear in hopes that gifts would appear inside them.  Soon everyone found some way to join in.

It was, Thor knew, about hope.  About having something to hold on to in uncertain times.  A reason to believe that all was not lost as long as they were together.  Thor did not entirely feel it, in truth.  He mostly felt loss, an ache for absent friends.  But he was a king now, and though he did not approve of how his father had sometimes gone about it, he understood the need to appear beyond such feelings.

So he threw himself into Banner’s Christmas too. 

*   *   *

Among the bits and pieces they had found on the planet was an old holographic projector, one in fairly good order considering its age.  It wasn’t too difficult to reprogram the tree already in its database to look like the sort Banner favored for Christmas, complete with glowing lights and ornaments.  He set it up in the dining area, and not long after that presents began to appear beneath it.  One thing that Thor’s follow Asgardians appeared to have misunderstood was the precise nature of Christmas gift giving.  The presents weren’t wrapped or even obscured in any way, nor were they addressed to anyone. 

Thor mentioned this much to Heimdall one day when he found him drinking tea at the table nearest the tree. 

Heimdall looked thoughtful.  “Maybe they understood, maybe they didn’t,” he said, not altogether helpfully.  “But the gifts are for whoever might need them, from whoever might be able to give them.”

Thor had done everything he could to make sure no one _needed_ anything they did not have.  He hated to imagine that one of his people might have slipped through the cracks.  But though there were cloaks and blankets and boots, most of the things he saw beneath the tree were not items of obvious necessity at all.  They were toys and rugs and handmade knick-knacks and other bits of furniture that might make impersonal ship’s quarters seem more like a home.  So they were nothing anyone would ask their king to provide, but still necessary in their way.

Among these gifts, given what looked to Thor like pride of place, was a large book.

Heimdall saw where Thor was looking and said, “And that is for all of us.” 

“What is it?” Thor asked.

“It’s Asgard.”  Thor’s confusion must have shown on his face, because Heimdall jerked his head again in the book’s direction.  “Take a look.”

Thor obeyed, and found... a revelation.  Names, and stories to go with them, of everyone aboard the ship and everyone who had not made it that far.  A way they might all live on, and not just in memory.  Someday soon Thor would take the time to look at all the book’s contents, all the names, all the stories, in detail- but for the moment he skimmed, as was natural, for names he knew.  

He found his parents in there, and Lady Sif and the warriors three too- and though there were many tales from many tellers Thor saw a few that only he and one other aboard the ship would know.  Loki had told those stories.  Indeed, Thor suspected that though Heimdall had played his part it was Loki they truly had to thank for the book itself.

“He did this,” Thor said out loud.

“Yes,” Heimdall agreed.  He did not have to ask who ‘he’ was.  He, of all people, knew there was only ever one when Thor talked like that. 

Thor couldn’t entirely articulate in his own mind- let alone aloud to Heimdall- what it was about the things written there which most moved him.  Was it the fact that for all the hateful things Loki had said about their father or the warriors three or all of Asgard, he really would miss what they had lost as keenly as Thor- perhaps even more so for having plotted against them as long as he had?  Was it the almost accidental fondness in every word of that book?  Was it the way Loki had said, ‘I don’t know what I am’ like that, but this time instead of trying to bury it in spite and mischief it appeared he had actually done something to discover it?

Loki was not going to change- not, at least, to any great extent and certainly never because Thor expected it of him.  But he might take a step closer here or there- and he might keep stepping if the time, at last, was right.

Thor was half tempted to keep his distance.  He had evidently said and done the right thing on Sakaar- but he was sure that any direction he pushed Loki in from here would be the wrong one.  The rest of Thor, though, simply wanted to know what his brother was thinking. 

And all of Thor knew that with the quarters as close as they were the decision would soon be taken out of his hands. 

*   *   *

Between the two of them, they were busy enough on the ship that Thor wasn’t alone with Loki again for several days- not awake, at least.  Sometimes he would return to their shared rooms late at night to find Loki sound asleep, and though he knew Loki might have been faking it Thor never disturbed him.  Other times he would go to bed after an evening alone reading reports of the goings-on aboard ship and wake in the early hours to the sound of Loki’s even breathing.  Thor still slept with a blade close to hand, but he found that noise as soothing as any he knew. 

It was so strange, existing mired in suspicion as he did, but if it was the price he had to pay for Loki by his side, at his right hand as Thor had always longed for him to be, then pay it he would, and gladly- even if it could only be a fraction of what he wanted most.

At least Thor knew their lives would never be dull.  He wouldn’t like it much if they were, anyway.

Heimdall was keeping a sort of advent calendar on the wall of the dining area, for with no way to keep time as the Midgardians did by the rotation of their earth no one was entirely sure when the day they were all anticipating would actually arrive.  Thor was tempted, sometimes, to slow him- for the actual date meant nothing, really, except that preparing for it had made people happy.  Thor wished that happiness could last weeks, months, _years_.  

But it was the night before Christmas at last, by Heimdall’s watch, when Thor returned from a meeting with Banner and found Loki awake and alert in their rooms.

He was sitting on the chaise in the corner, legs folded up, with a drink at his elbow and a book in his hands.  It was one of the handful the refugees had been able to save from Hela.  Too little of their people existed now in the physical world.  But Thor tried not to be melancholy about that- how could he be so for long when Loki looked up, shot him a sly smile, and said, “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were avoiding me.”

“I could say the same of you,” Thor replied.  He came to join Loki, sitting in the chair beside the chaise.

Loki lifted an eyebrow, humor on his face.  “Not at all.  In fact, I wanted to ask you something.”

“As I did you,” Thor said.  It was easy to fall into certain patterns with Loki, but old memories and an uncertain future gave every smile teeth, made every silence pointed, and stretched every word into a double meaning.  And there was no going back- only going forward.  “You should go first.”

Loki’s other brow joined the first.  He waved a hand.  “No, no, you should.  I insist.”

Thor swallowed.  Attempting to call Loki on the things he had done right often proved as fruitless as calling him on the things he had done wrong.  And yet... and yet Thor wanted- for reasons he didn’t himself completely understand- to hear from Loki’s own lips what he had meant by it.  “I saw it,” he said at last.  “The book.”

“Ah.”  Loki’s lips twisted a trifle bitterly.  “I suppose you must find this very amusing.”

“I thought jokes were your territory, brother.”

Thor had not felt much like teasing for some time, but he must have caught the right tone somehow because Loki’s mouth twitched into something a little more genuine.  “I am as surprised as you are, you know.  That I miss home so much.”

Thor did not think Loki was actually all that surprised, but he did not say so.  There was more to talking with Loki than simply sorting the truth from the lies. 

Loki added, “I am certainly surprised to grieve more than you.”

“I grieve,” Thor told him.  “Very much.”  He grieved for the warriors three- and knowing that they had died in battle, as they would have wished to, did not make their passing less painful, as they had all thought it might when they were young.  He grieved for Lady Sif- not dead but traveling only Heimdall knew where, and how she would grieve, when she learned what had passed and wondered if things could have been different if she was there.  He grieved for his mother- lost to them long before, but a little more lost now that so much of Asgard’s knowledge, a great deal of it collected by her, was gone too.  He grieved for those of the Asgard he had never known- and now never would.  He grieved for those he would see every day from now on- all of them full in the knowledge of family and friends they would not see again in this life.

He could see it when Loki believed him.  He softened even further.  “You’ve hidden it well.  Father would be proud.”

Loki sounded sad, but Thor meant it when he said, “I hope so.”  Though he knew the monsters which had brought so much pain to Asgard were primarily of Odin’s making, he grieved for his father perhaps most of all- because he could never put right the things he had done wrong, now.  But Thor would do his best to be a good king, and if he sometimes looked in the mirror and thought of his father... that could be something good, too. 

Loki made a noise of agreement, then, and Thor smiled.  It was melancholy, but he felt better for their talk- as he often had, when they were young. 

“What did you want to ask me?” he asked Loki at last.

“What is that?”  Loki pointed up, at the bulkhead above him.  Thor had been so occupied with Loki that he did not notice anything amiss with it before, but now that he looked... he noticed, all right. 

There was a plant hanging there.  Thor swallowed.  “It is a parasitic plant,” he said.  “Not dangerous, as far as our foragers could tell.  We found it on the surface the last time we stopped for supplies, and the Valkyrie- I believe- had discovered from Banner that it is traditional among his people to hang a similar plant- called mistletoe- in work and dwelling-spaces at Christmas.”

“For what reason?”

“Festivity.”

Loki cocked his head to one side, looking doubtful.  “I don’t think that’s all,” he said at last.  “Though she made deliveries to all the quarters, Banner particularly protested her delivery to me- and even attempted to talk me out of hanging it.”

“So you hung it.”

“So I hung it.”  Loki crossed his arms over his chest, regarding Thor with such patience it was as if he could wait a thousand years. 

“It is also considered... bad luck, I suppose,” Thor began, slowly, “to sit or stand beneath a sprig of this plant-”

“As I am doing now.”

“Yes, as you are doing now.”  Thor halted, briefly, and Loki’s lips twitched faintly, ruining his otherwise impassive aspect.  Was he merely playing another of his tricks?  Did he know precisely what a sprig of mistletoe was thought to mean?  Was this all an elaborate joke?

Did it matter?

Thor pressed on, “It is considered bad luck to sit beneath it as you are doing now and not... be kissed.”

“Ah,” Loki said.  He still looked relatively impassive.  It was still difficult to tell if he was surprised or moved or anything else.  “Perhaps you had better kiss me, then.”

Thor exhaled, too loudly.  He ought to peck Loki on the cheek and call it good, and if Loki knew that that was against the usual spirit of the tradition he would have to say so, and perhaps even say _why_.  And he would have to acknowledge, too, that nothing else was common on Midgard between siblings, technically related by blood or otherwise. 

Because he wouldn’t have been looking at Thor quite so intensely now, if he expected only a peck on the cheek. 

Thor had often wondered if Loki understood that Thor _wanted_ to kiss him, thought about doing it far more than he ought to- even now that so much had passed which should, by rights, have made Thor stop wanting it.  Stop wanting _him_. 

And he wasn’t one to pass up an opportunity to have what he wanted, even in circumstances so decidedly... mixed.

Thor crossed over to the chaise, seating himself lightly at Loki’s side- lightly, in case he had to move away from him again at speed.  Then he turned, moving towards Loki very slowly and cupping Loki’s jaw with one hand, running a thumb across smooth skin and smoother lips briefly before he closed the final distance between them. 

It definitely wasn’t a peck on the cheek, or even on the lips, but Thor hadn’t meant for it to be much more than that either.  Only Loki’s mouth was so soft, and it opened under his almost immediately.  Long hair tickled Thor’s fingers as he stroked Loki’s neck, and the moment he tasted what Loki had been drinking on his tongue he knew it had gone too far already- and yet it was another moment before he managed to pull away. 

“There,” he said, quietly.  He wasn’t as far away as he ought to have been, still, and he could make out a great deal of _expression_ crossing Loki’s face- but it was not so easy to make sense of it all.  Not so easy to be sure what it meant. 

“I thought you said that jokes were my territory,” Loki said.  Thor thought one moment that he looked angry, the next frightened, the next sad.  One thing he did not particularly look was amused, though he did approximate it, in a moment, with a small smile.  

Thor said, “I was not joking.”  For so large a thing, for something he had hidden away so near to his heart for such a long time, it slipped so easily off his tongue.  He added, “You must know that, brother.”

“Must I?  _Brother_?”

Thor had kept silent on this subject for many, many years, afraid of what it would do to them if Loki knew.  He had been afraid even when he was, truly, sure that they would fight side by side forever.  How much more frightening was it to confess now, when things were far more fragile?  When he had genuinely believed more than once that they might never see each other again?  But secrets did not come naturally to him.  He could deceive when he needed to, but he took no pleasure in it- nor did he take pleasure in holding himself back.  And if this was part of some larger game on Loki’s part, if a farther fall awaited him, then he would much rather face it with courage.  “You must know that I have thought of doing that,” he whispered, touching the side of Loki’s face again, lightly, when Loki did not prevent him, “many times.”

“With or without the benefit of parasitic plants?”

“Without.  The plant... did not occur to me before now.”  

“Would you have used it if it had?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then perhaps the Valkyrie thought she was doing you a good turn.”

“Perhaps,” Thor said, slowly.  “If she did it at all.”  He was very close to Loki now, close enough to kiss him again, if he chose.  “It seems to me that if the plant is anyone’s style, it is yours.”

“Hmm,” Loki replied.

Thor wasn’t entirely sure what to make of it.  Even now he did not understand Loki as well as he would like, but he did know that Loki was entirely capable of bringing that plant into their quarters knowing what it would mean, _and_ of being annoyed with Thor and convinced he was being mocked when Thor did precisely as he had intended, both at the same time. 

He stayed silent, and for a while so did Loki.  And then, finally, Loki said, “I did not know.”  

“But you must have suspected.”

“Perhaps I did.  Or perhaps... Perhaps I merely saw a chance and took it.”

“A chance to what?”

“To taste you.  As _I_ have thought of doing.  Many times."

Thor regarded him quietly for another while.  It was... possible that they had misread each other in this.  They had certainly misread each other in many ways over the years.  But it was also difficult to believe that after losing so much he had come to rely on, he might get something he had never imagined might be his.  He said, “Have you had your taste?”

“Not nearly,” Loki replied.  And then his hands were in fists on Thor’s shirtfront, pulling him into the kind of kiss Thor had sometimes fantasized, when he had allowed himself to think that way, they might share- rough like sparring, and yet sweet as honey wine. 

He hoped Loki liked his taste.  He certainly liked Loki's.

“Perhaps,” Loki said after a while, when he was bent over Thor completely and his hair was falling around them like a curtain, “there really is something to this Christmas business.  Can it not last forever?”

“I’m afraid not,” Thor said.  Tomorrow there would be celebrations, a little bittersweet.  There would be grief, again, for loved ones lost- of late, and long ago- that Thor would not feel able to indulge in himself.  There would be Loki’s next scheme, and the possibility that it would be his last.  There would be life, moving on. 

But for now, he had Loki’s mouth so close to his.  For now neither of them was going anywhere. 

And for later...

“There are," Thor said slowly, reaching up to brush aside a little of Loki's hair, "Other celebrations on Midgard.  One to welcome the new year comes close on the heels of Christmas, in some places.”

“And is there a tradition on that day which calls a kiss good luck?”

“Of course there is.”

Loki grinned.  “Then I approve.  And perhaps-” he pressed closer still- “we had better practice for it.  We wouldn’t want to tempt fate.”

“No,” Thor agreed.  “We wouldn’t.”   


End file.
